When a man holds that much power, you listen to what he has to say.These are our 10 favourite quotes from Aliko Dangote.

1. To succeed in business, you must build a brand and never destroy it. One competitive advantage I had when I ventured into manufacturing was my brand Dangote, which I diligently built in the course of my trading commodities. If you don’t have ambition, you shouldn’t be alive.

2. In whatever you do, strive to be the best at it

3. Every morning when I wake up, I make up my mind to solve as many problems, before retiring home.

4. Don’t kill the competition. Competition is healthy for businesses. It keeps you the entrepreneur on your toes.

5. Every morning when I wake up, I make up my mind to solve as many problems, before retiring home.

6. Manufacture, don’t just trade. There is money in manufacturing even though it is capital intensive. To achieve a big breakthrough, I had to start manufacturing the same product I was trading on; which is commodities.
7. Somebody was asked how he would operate in government and the person said he would face only two things – infrastructure and education. And he was asked what about the rest. He said with infrastructure, other things would follow.

8. Foreign investors did not build South Korea – South Koreans developed their country

9. The biggest problem of anybody is when you taste money; you were once rich and then you become poor. It is very bad. Nothing can be worse than that.

10. It is when that money goes that you’ll see the true colour of everybody – your wife, your children.